


The Harvest's Account

by handschuhmaus



Series: I Guess It Rhymes With Steve? [3]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 05:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2570360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/handschuhmaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>W<span class="small">HAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR IF NOT FOR THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?</span></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Harvest's Account

Everything was black. This was not because he was in the vacuum of space--which would be embellished with starlight and was hardly conducive to continuing life--nor because he was in some lightless void. No, were it not for the monochromatic palette, the landscape, wherever here was, could have almost been called pastoral. Excepting--or indeed perhaps it added to the impression--a very large piece of gleaming harvest machinery. 

Half the grain in this field he stood in had been put up in shocks, seemingly incongruous with the presence of the harvester. Air was moving against his face, but it felt more like some sort of invisible blower was positioned before him than a wind. Aside from that, the air was so still it seemed unnatural.

A sort of rattling noise caught the attention then of Darth Sidious. Or was he just Palpatine, given he was presumably _dead_? If his eyes did not deceive him, he was being accosted by a tall skeleton, in a robe much like his own, holding a scythe in one hand and what seemed to be a small hourglass in the other. 

YOUR TIMER HAS NOT YET RUN DOWN. It--he--said to him, and he privately thought there was a hint of the voice of one of his former apprentices about it. HIGHLY UNUSUAL.

"I--" he said, the events of the last few minutes he recalled returning to him, "was thrown down the reactor shaft of the Death Star. Which," he recounted with some embarrassment at having played his hand too definitely on a prediction that proved to be wrong, "shortly thereafter exploded. I shouldn't be alive," he noted with some alarm. He hoped desperately this was not some bizarre hallucination.

ON THIS MATTER YOU ARE CORRECT, the skeleton agreed, which was far from reassuring.

"Then why am I here? _Where_ is here?" he requested.

YES. THAT. and there seemed some distaste in the words. DID YOU BELIEVE IN AN AFTERLIFE? NOT THAT THAT WOULD EXPLAIN YOUR PRESENCE _HERE_.

"Not specifically," he admitted. The Jedi always said there was the Force rather than death, but this he had never entirely accepted and even if it was true, he had allied himself so much with the jealous Dark Side, which was not apt to provide its pledged users an existence either comfortable or happy, even in life.

BUT YOU HAVE SENT MANY OFF TO THE SO-CALLED ELYSIAN FIELDS SO TO SPEAK.

He surmised that this was meant to refer to some afterlife probably more paradisal than not, but he still did not know what the skeleton was getting at. "Who _are_ you, anyway?" he asked.

I AM DEATH.

" _Death_ , you said? Death. You--represent it, then?"

YES, said the skeleton, without actually voicing the word. BUT, he added, I SEVER SOULS FROM BODIES SO THAT THE FORMER MAY PASS ON INTO WHATEVER AFTERLIFE SEEMS APPROPRIATE.

"Then I am bound for some hell," said Palpatine surprisingly non-nonchalantly.

The skeleton fixed him with a look from distant blue galaxies hanging in the infinite within its eye sockets. BE THAT AS IT MAY, YOUR LIFETIMER ACTUALLY HAS NOT YET RUN OUT.

**Author's Note:**

> (...there's a reference to Dooku in there... ;) )


End file.
